made to trace an approximation of Man toward the class of mere animals by insensible transitions.

Were there in truth any of the human race in animal forms, or any animal endowed with human reason, they would be publicly exhibited. We should have them all over Europe, especially in times like these, when the whole Globe is pervaded and ransacked by so many enlightened Travellers; and when, I do not say Princes, but puppet-players import alive in our fairs the zebra so wild, the elephant so lumpish, tigers, lions, white bears, nay up to crocodiles; which have all been presented to public inspection in London.

Vain is the attempt to establish analogies between the she orang-outang, from the situation and configuration of the bosom, from the periodical sexual purgations, from the attitude, and even from the appearance of modesty. Though the female orang. outang passes her life in the woods, Allegrain surely, as has been observed, never could have modelled after her his statue of Diana which is shewn at Lucienne. There is a much greater difference still between the reason of Man and that of beasts, than there is be tween their forms; and that man's 'understanding must have been strangely perverted who could advance, as a celebrated Author has done, that there is a greater distance between the understanding of Newton and that of such or such a man, than between the understanding of that man and the instinct of an animal. As we have already said, the dullest of Mankind can learn the use of fire, and the practice of agriculture, of which the most intelli

gent

gent of animals is absolutely incapable; but what I have not yet said, the simple use of fire and the prac tice of agriculture are far preferable to all Newton's discoveries.

Agriculture is the art of Nature, and fire is her primary agent. From experience we are assured that men have acquired by means of this element and of this art a plenitude of intelligence, of which all their other combinations, I venture to affirm, are merely consequences. Our Sciences and Arts are derived for the greatest part from these two sources, and they do not constitute a difference more real between the understanding of one man and another, than there is between the dress and furniture of Europeans and those of Savages. As they are perfectly adapted to the necessities of the one and the other, they establish no real difference between the understandings which contrived them. The importance which we assign to our talents proceeds not from their utility but from our pride. We should take a material step toward it's humiliation, did we consider that the animals which have no skill in agriculture, and know not the use of fire, attain to the greatest part of the objects of our Arts and Sciences, and even surpass them.

I say nothing of those which build, which spin, which manufacture paper, cloth, hives, and which practise a multitude of other trades of which we have no knowledge. But the torpedo defended himself from his enemies by means of the electric shock, before Academies thought of making experiments in electricity; and the limpet understood the power of the pressure of the air, and attached itself to the

rocks, by forming the vacuum with it's pyramidical shell, long before the air-pump was set a going. The quails which annually take their departure from Europe on their way to Africa have such a perfect knowledge of the autumnal Equinox, that the day of their arrival in Malta, where they rest for twentyfour hours, is marked on the almanacks of that island about the 22d of September, and varies every year as the Equinox. The swan and wild duck have an accurate knowledge of the Latitude where they ought to stop, when every year they re-ascend in Spring to the extremities of the North, and they can find out without the help of compass or octant the spot where the year before they made their nests. The frigat which flies from East to West between the Tropics over vast Oceans interrupted by no Land, and which regains at night at the distance of many hundred leagues the rock hardly emerging out of the water which he left in the morning, possesses means of ascertaining his Longitude hitherto unknown to our most ingenious Astronomers.

Man, it has been said, owes his intelligence to his hands but the monkey, the declared enemy of all industry, has hands too. The sluggard or sloth likewise has hands, and they ought to have suggested to him the propriety of fortifying himself: of digging at least a retreat in the earth for himself and for his posterity, exposed as they are to a thousand accidents by the slowness of their progression. There are animals in abundance furnished with tools much more ingenious than hands, and which are not for all that a whit more intelligent. The gnat is fur

nished with a proboscis, which is at once an awl proper for piercing the flesh of animals, and a pump by which it sucks out their blood. This proboscis contains besides a long saw, with which it opens the small blood vessels at the bottom of the wound which it has made. He is likewise provided with wings to transport him wherever he pleases; a corslet of eyes studded round his little head, to see all the objects about him in every direction; talons so sharp, that he can walk on polished glass in a perpendicular direction; feet supplied with brushes for cleansing himself; a plume of feathers on his forehead; and an instrument answering the purpose of a trumpet to proclaim his triumphs. He is an inhabitant of the Air, the Earth, and the Water, where he is born in form of a worm, and where before he expires the eggs which are to produce a future generation are deposited.

With all these advantages he frequently falls a prey to insects smaller and of a much inferior organization. The ant which creeps only, and is furnished with no weapon except pincers, is formidable not to him only but to animals of a much larger size, and even to quadrupeds. She knows what the united force of a multitude is capable of effecting; she forms republics: she lays up store of provisions; she builds subterraneous cities; she forms her attacks in regular military array; she advances in columns, and sometimes constrains Man himself in hot countries to surrender his habitation to her.

So far is the intelligence of any one animal from depending on the structure of it's limbs, that their perfection

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perfection is frequently on the contrary in the inverse ratio of it's sagacity, and appears to be a kind compensation of Nature to make up a defect. To ascribe the intelligence of Man to his hands, is to deduce the cause from the means, and talent from the tool with which it works. It is just as if I were to say that Le Sueur is indebted for the happy native graces of his pictures to a pencil of sable's hair; and that Virgil owes all the harmony of his verses to a feather of the swan of Mantua.

It is still more extravagant to maintain that human reason depends on Climate, because there are some shades of variety in manners and customs. The Turks cover their heads with Turbans, and we cover ours with hats; they wear long flowing robes, and we dress in coats with short skirts. In Portugal, says Montagne, they drink off the sediment of wines, we throw it away. Other examples which I could quote are of similar importance. To all this I answer, that we would act as these people if we were in their country; and that they would act as we do were they in ours.

Turbans and flowing robes are adapted to hot countries, where the head and body stands in need of being cooled, by inclosing in the covering of both à greater mass of air. From this necessity has arisen the use of turbans among the Turks, the Persians, and Indians, of the mitres of the Arabians, of the bonnets like a sugar-loaf of the Chinese and Siamese, and that of wide and flowing robes worn by most of the Nations of the South. From a contrary necessity the Nations of the North, as the Polanders, the

Russians,